Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

Then she saw how he was looking at her and cursed again. He knew the signs—she was overwrought and flushed from the fire. Pyromancy always left her aroused and vulnerable; her mother had confessed the same. Horold had known, back when he was still human, that a visit right after an augury would not go unrewarded. A long time ago, that! But she was not too old to feel the need, and Benard could read her as easily as he could shape clay. He rose to his feet again and tried to intercept her. "Ingeld—"

" Don't touch me ! Can't you see it's a trap, fool? You're a dead man, Benard Celebre, a dead fool. Hurry. Leave before it's too late."

"No, I don't see." His vision was always selective.

"I mean he's shown you favor so he won't be the second most obvious suspect when bits of you turn up in the midden. But that's what he intends to do—disassemble you, claw you to bare bones. Benard, Benard! How could you possibly do anything so unspeakably stupid as to challenge Cutrath and then win ? In front of his friends ?"

"It was win or have all my guts kicked out." He smirked, pleased with himself. Great, lumbering bear!

"Silence! And why were you such a pea-brain as to come to court and brag about it? Why did you let that stupid Witness hag vomit it all out for everyone to hear? Why did she know what had happened? Answer me!"

Eyes of oiled ebony gleamed. "Make up your mind. I thought I was supposed to remain silent. Stand still, woman, you're making me giddy. Oh, gods, I want to kiss you!"

She flinched back. " No ! He'll ask that Witness trollop what you did in here. They're bitches ! Horold can ask anything about anyone and they'll tell him. She witnessed? There was no hedging or double-talk?"

He frowned. "No. I mean yes. She witnessed."

"How?" Ingeld howled. "Why are you so important that she sees what you do?" The Maynist's interest was inexplicable, but it confirmed the pyromancy. This seemingly insignificant artist was not insignificant at all.

"I expect it was Cutrath she was—"

"No! No! Last sixday he disappeared on a drunken binge. Horold asked where he was and the seers knew only that he was out of range, not in the palace. Last night they must have been seeing you !"

"Perhaps she could hear my thoughts this morning."

"Mayn's blessings do not include reading thoughts, only emotions. You must go now, Benard! Oh, look at you! Those fingernails! Are you eating properly? What's that all over your kilt?"

"Charcoal... blood? Twelve curses!" He was more upset by that tiny bloodstain than he had been by her prophecies of sudden death. "It's not my kilt. I'll have to buy Thranth another."

"I'll give you some copper..." She hurried over to her treasure chest.

He laughed. "I don't need copper. Horold gave me gold."

"Don't be absurd. You can't buy clothes with gold. Here, don't argue." She found a pelf string heavily laden with twists of copper, some large, some small, and looped it over his head. "Bury the gold somewhere safe and don't forget where. Now, please, will you go?"

He reached for her and she evaded him.

"Not yet." He was broad and stark, as stubborn as a team of onagers. "Ingeld, heart of my heart, Horold is not going to storm out of his assize to rush over here and decapitate me. You know him. If murder is his aim, then he'll take a long time to plan it and savor it beforehand. He loves a good hate."

She drew breath to argue, but he was quite right. The dreamer could be perceptive when he bothered.

"He knows what happened six years ago," Benard said. "His tame seers will tell him we've been nothing but friends since. If he does decide to kill me, he will; no doubt about that. If I worried about it, I'd have gone crazy years ago."

"He would have done it years ago if you weren't the bloodlord's hostage. But he'll get his chance eventually. Listen. Werists come here with dispatches from Stralg. Usually I don't meet them, but Horold wasn't around and I had a chance to be hostess and hear their gossip. The war's going badly, Benard. One man let slip that Stralg lost more ground in the winter. He's being driven back toward Celebre."

The sculptor shrugged his big shoulders.

She resisted an urge to try shaking him, which would not have worked. "Listen to me! You know the slaves and hostages and gold stopped coming years ago. Now it's just more and more Werists going out, about twenty sixty a year. And still he's losing!" She feared that Cutrath would be next—Horold would not commit himself on what Stralg had written, but the bloodlord had drawn all the other young males of his family into the abattoir, so why should the last one be favored?

"You know I care nothing for the war."

"You'd better start caring. Your father's been true to his word all these years, ruling the city as Stralg's puppet, but if the Florengian partisans are at his gates, then everything may change."

Benard's polite indifference did not change, so she switched to more drastic means. "Remember Tomoso?"

"Of course. Great kid." His smile curdled into suspicion. "Why?"

"His father was a Stralg puppet, like yours, ruler of Miona. Cavotti's rebels surrounded the town while Stralg was there and burned it down on his head. He lost..." she shrugged "... many, many men. Stralg's orders to Horold were to roast Tomoso over a very slow fire."

Benard winced. "No! No ! Even Horold... He didn't!"

"No," Ingeld agreed. "He didn't. He cropped Tomo's ears and sold him to slavers."

Benard swung around to stare out at the garden. He could hide his face, but the muscles in his back were taut as ships' cables. She longed to put her arms around him. Why must the gods be so cruel to someone so gentle?

"Why?" he said hoarsely. "What harm had he done? What good did that do?"

"Just spite. You'll never understand how a Werist thinks, Benard, so don't try. Saltaja's worse. Horold was being as merciful as he dared. It's the truth." Horold was the best of the whole horrible Hrag brood.

Benard said, "He won't be merciful with me. If it happens, it happens. There's nothing I can do about it."

"I hear he's sending you to Whiterim quarry."

"Me and a Werist or two to make sure I don't run. Thanks for the news. I had better go now."

"There's more."

He glanced around, trying to look exasperated instead of showing whatever he was really feeling. Just old bitterness, probably. He never seemed to fear the future, but he detested any mention of his past. "More murdered hostages?"

"I think so, but I'm not sure. None in Kosord. No, I mean that I asked the couriers about Celebre. They said your father was in poor health."

"Ingeld!" He sounded exasperated. "I care nothing for the war and less for my parents. They gave me away, remember? The only person I care about in all Dodec is you. You I love more than life itself. You were a mother for me; mother and lover and the only woman I want, but I can't have you. I should go." He headed for the garden.

"The others?" she said.

He stopped in the arch, without turning, a dark shape against the light. "What about them?"

She could not recall him ever showing even this much interest before, so deep was his hurt. "I've heard nothing recently, I admit. The young one, who stayed in Tryfors with Therek?"

"Orlando."

"He was still alive a year or so ago, when Therek came by here. He said something like 'The duckling that follows the dog thinks it's a puppy.' "

"Doesn't sound promising. Dantio's dead?"

"So Saltaja told me. She wouldn't bother to lie. If she'd cut his throat herself, she'd admit it."

"And Fabia? She's a smelly little bundle that cries all the time."

"I expect she's past that by now. She went to Jat-Nogul, to Karvak. Saltaja told me that she disappeared in the sack, when the rebels killed Karvak. She was assumed to be dead. I think you're the last, Benard, you and possibly Orlando." She longed to hold him.